by T J Mott
Thaddeus chuckled lightly. “Alright. Take care, Commodore.”
“You too.” Thad winced as Cooper gave him another mock salute. Despite his title of Admiral, his manner was far from military. His organization wasn’t a military attached to a nation-state, it was an independent mercenary force, and so protocol was usually pretty lax.
As his intelligence chief left the hangar, Thaddeus reactivated the computer in the table’s surface and skimmed through the reports downloaded from the transport’s computers, hoping it would be boring enough to finally help him sleep. He picked a folder at random and started scrolling through some of the travel schedules for the Waverly Depot, a space station and refueling center located just outside the Waverly system, about 350 light-years from Headquarters.
As he reviewed a few records, he found himself looking at the manifest of a starship called the Cassandra. It was a converted cruiser which spent most of its time hauling freight of questionable content. According to the manifest Cooper had acquired from Waverly Depot’s confidential files, it had quite a haul of slaves and was on its way to the Depot for a refueling stop.
As he skimmed through the manifest he remembered his own slave days, now many years in the past. At least Thad had been skilled (and lucky) enough to find his way to freedom…
He thought he saw something familiar and stopped to go back a few entries in the list. He frowned and felt his whole body tense up. His jaw dropped agape at what he saw, and he tapped the entry to bring it from the table’s surface into a larger projection above it.
A name and a face hovered above the table, seemingly staring back at him. A name and a face listed as cargo. A name and a face he recognized…from home.
His stomach knotted up, and he felt like he’d just been kicked squarely in the chest. His blood chilled, as if someone had pumped a liter of liquid helium from Cooper’s stolen ship straight into his veins…
Chapter 2
Senior Captain Reynolds was blissfully asleep in his suite aboard the frigate Caracal when the comm system chimed and rudely startled him awake.
“Reynolds here,” he growled sleepily. “What is it?” He sat up on the edge of the bed and tapped the lamp. Despite its low light output, it seemed to sear his eyes. The frigate was out in deep space, light-years away from any natural light source, and so his cabin reached near-perfect darkness with the lights out.
He checked the time. 0255.
On most days, senior officers were rarely disturbed in the middle of the night. Especially so when on a quiet, cushy assignment like guarding the secluded Headquarters facility. The list of people who knew its coordinates was exceedingly short, and its location was so far out of the way that nobody would ever stumble upon it by accident. Nothing exciting ever happened there, and the entire place almost completely shut down at night.
“I’m sorry to wake you.” His mind was still mostly asleep and it took him a long moment to recognize the voice, that of his executive officer, Captain Bennett. “Admiral Marcell just came aboard with a platoon of Marines and orders to get underway immediately.”
“Hmm.” Reynolds shook his head. He stood, feeling his old knees creak as they straightened, and quickly located the clean, neatly-pressed uniform he’d laid out before going to sleep. “I’m on my way.”
“Ah, that won’t be necessary. I can take care of it. I just wanted to inform you. I didn’t want you waking up and not knowing where we are.”
“Thanks.” He sat down on the edge of the bed with a grunt and rubbed his eyes. “Where are we going?”
“Well that’s the part I don’t like,” Bennett replied after a long pause. “He wants to get to Waverly in seven days or less.”
“Seven days? Are you sure?” He frowned as he mentally recalled the star charts for the so-called Independent Regions, the area of space where Marcell’s Headquarters was located. “Waverly is, what, three hundred some light-years away?”
“Affirmative, Captain. Commander Allen believes we can do it but we’ll have to shut down all nonessential systems and we’ll be running the hyperdrive and cooling systems well past their specifications.”
“What’s the mission?” he asked. He had run many bizarre missions under Admiral Marcell during his time in Blue Fleet, but they were usually carefully planned out weeks, if not months, in advance, with plenty of time allotted to the travel schedule.
“I actually don’t know yet. He provided some data on a lightly-armed cruiser and said we need a task force capable of disabling it. But he’s saving the rest of the details for the officers’ briefing in the morning.” Bennett paused. “To be honest he seemed quite flustered. Not his usual self.”
“I’ve never known him to risk burning up a hyperdrive before. You said he’s bringing Marines?” Blue Fleet had some crew members with basic security experience, but few of them were as experienced or well-trained as Marcell’s Marines, most of whom had experience with the well-regarded military branches from among the various star empires. “It must be a boarding operation. Ship suggestions? Who else do we have that can go that fast?”
“Well, I’d argue that none of the ships in the fleet can go that fast,” Bennett scoffed. “But I’ve already activated the fastest ships. Us, and the corvettes Owl, Shrike, and Panther.”
“What about the Lynx?” Reynolds asked, referring to the Caracal’s sister ship.
“They’re running behind schedule on the reactor overhaul and can’t join us. I’m still investigating other options but it doesn’t look good.”
Reynolds frowned. One frigate and three corvettes was an uncomfortably thin task force, especially since those specific ships were built more for speed than firepower. He’d feel much better if the Lynx was available, but a frigate without a functional main reactor wasn’t much good at anything. “Okay, well do whatever you need to do to get us underway, and I suppose we’ll work out the details en route.”
“Aye. I can take it from here.”
The comm clicked off. Reynolds dimmed the light and laid back down, wondering what kind of misadventure Marcell was getting him into this time.
***
Reynolds awoke a few hours later to a sweltering cabin. It was easily thirty-nine, maybe forty degrees in his suite. The ventilation system was silent, too, meaning that the ship’s heat tanks were too hot to function as an effective cold sink for the life support system. The ventilation system would occasionally kick on to keep oxygen circulating, but it would have no cooling effect.
He got out of bed, dressed quickly, and gulped down two full glasses of lukewarm water dispensed from the cabin’s sink. He glanced out the viewport and saw that they were stopped in deep space. The running lights of one of his corvettes blinked a few kilometers away. Its radiator panels were extended and glowed brilliantly, casting a blue-white light which illuminated the vessel well enough for him to discern details on its hull despite the complete lack of natural illumination this far in deep space. The view disturbed him. Starship radiators often glowed while dissipating the heat accumulated during hyperspace jumps, but never that brightly, and never that color. A dull reddish-orange was normal. White-hot was not.
He exited his cabin, passed through the lounge-like room that the officers’ quarters surrounded, and stepped into one of the main corridors of his ship, the frigate Caracal. It was the flagship of Blue Fleet, the smallest and fastest fleet in Admiral Marcell’s organization, which primarily defended the Headquarters asteroid. Blue Fleet also often provided task forces for many of Marcell’s seemingly outlandish personal missions. As a Senior Captain, Reynolds was the practical commanding officer for the fleet, though on paper Marcell himself was listed as its commodore and commander.
The atmosphere within the ship’s cramped corridors was hot and stuffy and uncomfortably humid. The crew he passed sweated at their stations, most of them shirtless and covered in sheens of glistening sweat. The ship already stank of body odor.
The corridor was very dim. Most light sources, includin
g computer terminals and displays, were offline, as the frigate’s engineers did everything they could to limit power usage and reduce heat production while prioritizing hyperspace speed.
The lifts were also offline, so Reynolds used the nearest zero-G ladder tube to reach the command deck. He scowled as his stomach flopped in the zero-gravity environment, grateful when gravity returned as he stepped onto the new deck. He continued on to the Command Center.
The Command Center was the nerve center of the frigate. Safely buried deep inside the starship within its own box of heavy armor, it consisted of a large, rectangular room that could easily have been an open-plan office in any corporate environment. Workstations sat on top of long tables arranged in rows which mostly faced the front of the room, though several small islands were spread throughout. A couple such islands were cleared of workstation equipment, instead storing a few piles of paper notes or tablets. Each station had a reasonably comfortable swiveling office chair bolted to the deck.
More terminals lined the walls. Most of them were giant two-dimensional displays nearly two meters tall, reaching nearly to the ceiling, hanging above slim input panels that cantilevered from the walls at just above waist height. Most of the displays were dark, except for a few at the front of the room which showed course projections, a local starmap, and an engineering summary of the task force. A few gaps between the terminals allowed for doorways into the rest of the Command Center areas, which included office space, a head, a couple briefing rooms, a break room, and the like.
Most of the room was painted an unobtrusive medium gray, leaving the Command Center fairly dim even if the lights were at full power. Information was their most important asset and the dark walls helped to highlight the collections of display terminals. Now, the room was even dimmer than normal, with lit workstation screens providing most of the lighting.
In the middle of the room, at a clearing in the rows of workstations, was a two-meter-by-two-meter holographic projection surface which looked like a large square table when it was turned off. At the moment, the space above it showed several holographic representations of the task force’s ships. Near each ship hovered a status summary provided by its officers as the group waited to cool off and recharge for the next hyperspace jump.
At the very back of the room was the so-called Command Box, where Captain Reynolds spent most of his time in the Command Center. It was a raised platform with four luxurious chairs and spacious desk surfaces. The decking sat about half a meter above the rest of the room, giving the commander (or VIPs) a good view of the entire Command Center. These desks did not have the standard workstation setup, but instead each surface was a reactive touchscreen display capable of being configured in limitless ways to the commander’s individual preference.
It was a noisy room. Over a dozen personnel occupied the workstations, and the room was filled with chatter as they performed the myriad tasks required to keep the ships coordinated and operating according to plan. Above, the overworked ventilation system thrummed overhead as it recirculated the starship’s warm, humid air without actively cooling it.
He walked past the Command Box and approached the holodisplay. “Report!” he ordered, raising his voice into a harsh bark that easily broke through the din. The staff all fell silent and turned their attention to their commander.
Commander Allen, the ship’s Chief Engineer, was standing by the central holodisplay, studying the status summaries which hovered near each of the holographic starships. He turned to face Reynolds and set a drink down on top of the projector. One of the miniature corvettes floating above it fuzzed momentarily, then returned to normal as the system recalibrated itself around the interfering mug. “All ship systems operating very warmly, sir. Even the iced tea is hot this morning. We’ve shut down all nonessential systems and the cooks are asking for permission to bake muffins on the hyperdrive.”
Reynolds rolled his eyes.
Allen turned serious and updated his commander in a rapid-fire flurry of words. “We made an eight light-year jump to get away from HQ and get a reading on our systems’ heat profiles. We’re stopped for cooling and hyperdrive recalibration. The life support heat exchangers will be back online within the next hour. Once we’ve sorted through the data from that jump and recalibrated, the hyperdrive will be recharged and ready to engage within five hours. I expect it will take us a few jumps to get things set and start making longer jumps.”
“And the other ships?” he asked, seeing an unusual number of warnings blinking on the task force engineering summary at the front of the Command Center.
“The corvettes are running much hotter than us. Their cooling systems just aren’t as powerful as ours. And the Panther reported some damage during the jump but we don’t have details yet. Oh, and Admiral Marcell and Captain Bennett are waiting for you in the large briefing room.”
“Thank you, Commander.” Reynolds nodded at Allen in dismissal.
He walked to the port side of the Command Center and passed through an open door. The briefing room had one long rectangular holodisplay-equipped table in the middle, surrounded by a ring of chairs bolted down to the deck. Just like in the Command Center, the walls were lined with arrays of computer terminals which could monitor or control any of the starship’s functions. Sometimes, during larger operations, the briefing room was used as a separate flag bridge, where the fleet commanders could focus on the task force as a whole without being distracted by the Caracal’s own internal operations.
Admiral Marcell and Captain Bennett were present, and one of the wall displays was linked up with the command staff of a corvette. He nodded a greeting to the two in the room and turned his attention to the screen, which showed the face of the Panther’s captain. “Good morning, Captain Simon,” he greeted.
“Speak for yourself.” Captain Simon was clearly irritated. “Our hyperdrive core is at eight hundred degrees and our interior is at forty-three,” he retorted rather frankly.
Reynolds frowned and turned to Admiral Marcell, who looked rather disheveled. He was sweating just as much as everyone else, but his eyes looked red, baggy, and tired, as if he hadn’t slept. He also was slightly unsteady on his feet, rocking around in a mild circle that suggested his balance was impaired. He looked somewhat intoxicated.
“So, Admiral, what’s going on? I assume you’re not here just to force the cooks to bake muffins with our hyperdrive.”
“Not exactly,” the younger man replied tiredly, with not even a hint of humor in his expression. Reynolds wasn’t much of a jokester, but Marcell could be easily amused if he was in a decent mood. The lack of a reaction did not speak well for his current state. “I’ll give a full briefing when everyone’s here, but basically this is a rescue op with a very narrow margin for timing.”
Captain Bennett, the Caracal’s executive officer and second-in-command, spoke up. He was a tall, gaunt, middle-aged man with light hair rapidly turning gray. “Narrow margin, indeed. If we’d departed even a few hours later the trip would not be possible. As it is we’ll be running the ship well past its tolerances.”
Captain Simon’s voice piped in from the wall, “Yes, about that. Our heat pumps are old and one had a bit of a meltdown during the jump. We’re working on repairs and expect that we can still keep up with you.”
Two more men entered, passing into the conference room from the main Command Center. One of them was a squat, middle-aged, but tough-looking man who looked like he could easily wrestle down everyone in the room. The other was a thin, younger-looking officer. Both wore the battle dress uniform of Marcell’s Marine force.
“Ah, this is Lieutenant Rossell,” introduced Marcell, gesturing at the younger of the two. “Commander of the Marine platoon I brought on board with me.”
“I believe we’ve met,” remarked Reynolds. “Once or twice.”
The Marine lieutenant nodded. “I’ve been assigned to Blue Fleet before, though this is the first time I’ve been on the Caracal.” He gestured to the older m
an beside him, who was standing at attention. “This is my platoon sergeant, Sergeant Weber.”
Weber stiffened up and saluted the officers smartly. Marcell’s eyes narrowed in irritation. “Hello,” he greeted without returning the salute. He hated salutes. “Glad to have you with us. Where did you serve before?
“I served twenty-five years in the Norma Imperial Army, twelve of those years in Special Forces, and joined up here about a year ago.”
Reynolds hadn’t met Weber before. Many of the Marines were highly experienced in other militaries, but that was an unusual length of service. Most soldiers like that would have stayed until retirement, not quit and moved on to a mercenary force.
It was as if Marcell had read his mind. “Mind if I ask why you left Norma after such a long career?” he asked.
Weber hesitated before answering. “I was not comfortable with their direction. It was not the same Norma Empire I signed up for as a young man.”
“Hmm.”
Reynolds sensed Weber’s unease at Marcell’s manner. “At ease, Sergeant. Don’t mind us, we’re kind of informal. Take a seat if you’d like.” The more disciplined members of the organization with actual military experience were often unnerved by the Admiral’s irreverent attitude. Reynolds didn’t mind it, but long ago he’d been part of an actual Navy so he could see both sides. He tried to provide a buffer between the more disciplined individuals and the more lax ones, when necessary.
“Yes sir.” Weber stepped forward and stiffly sat down. Lieutenant Rossell took the seat next to him.
Something chimed, and Reynolds looked to the panels on the wall to see that the captains of the two other corvettes, the Shrike and the Owl, had called in. Commander Allen entered, followed by Commander Janssen, the Chief Medical Officer for the frigate; Lieutenant Commander Green, the Chief Gunnery Officer; Lieutenant Poulsen, the ship’s pilot; and a number of other officers, their subordinates, and aides. “Well, I think we’re all assembled,” announced Reynolds as he took a seat at the head of the table. He gestured towards Marcell. “Admiral, the floor is all yours.”